Job Therapy: Finding Work That Works for You - Hardcover

West, Tessa

 
9780593714744: Job Therapy: Finding Work That Works for You
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0593714741 ISBN 13: 9780593714744
Verlag: Portfolio, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

A psychologist’s guide to finding your most fulfilling job yet

When we’re unhappy in our jobs, we often attribute our frustration to a bad manager, boring tasks, and stressful workloads. But our dissatisfaction at work usually stems from a deeper psychological need that’s not being met at work, like not getting the recognition you deserve.

In Job Therapy, Dr. Tessa West helps you figure out the real reason you’re unhappy and shows you how to find a new position in which you’ll thrive, whether in a different role, company, or new industry altogether. Through her research interviewing thousands of people who have recently switched jobs or undergone career changes, she found there are five common sources of career frustration:

  • having an identity crisis – does your sense of self no longer match your job?
  • you’ve drifted-apart – do you no longer recognize the job you once loved?
  • you’re torn between places – are you taking on too many roles at work, switching tasks too often, or stuck between two paths?
  • you’re the runner up – do you always feel like you keep coming in second?
  • you’re the underappreciated star – are you crushing it at work, but the people around you aren’t recognizing your performance?

Dr. West will guide you through a working week audit to help identify your unique psychological stressors and use that knowledge to understand what you want your future career to look like. Presenting cutting-edge insights on networking and hiring, from Dr. West’s interviews with over 1,500 professional recruiters, Job Therapy will help you land your best role yet – one that guarantees happiness for years to come.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dr. Tessa West is Professor of Psychology at New York University, where she is a leading expert on the science of social relationships. Her academic research and writing for the media focuses on how to improve communication between employees, bosses, and hiring professionals across workplace settings.  She has over 100 academic publications and is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal. Her work has been covered by Scientific American, the New York Times, Financial Times, The Guardian, CNN, CNBC, ABC World News, TIME, Bloomberg, HBR,    Fast Company, and the US Supreme Court. Her first book Jerks at Work published to rave reviews.

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1

The Crisis of Identity

I thought this career was for me,
but now I'm having second thoughts

I sat down with Timothy, a technology expert who's been at the same company for the past eight years. In preparation for this interview, I told him I thought he'd be perfect for the chapter on a type of career goer called the Crisis of Identity-the person who's spent years perfecting their skills but has ambivalent feelings about their career and sometimes contemplates leaving it.

Within moments of the interview, I began to question my judgment. "I know what this chapter is about, and I am not the ideal candidate to interview for it," he tells me right out the gate.

"I've been the go-to guy for helping people with technology since high school," he says, followed by a passionate take on how "technology [is the] underpinning of every function of society." If Timothy's trying to shatter my assumption that he's not dedicated to the craft anymore, he's doing a good job. Plus, there's the small issue of his having no immediate plans to leave his job and not even really looking.

But over the course of our forty-five-minute conversation, I become convinced that Tim is indeed questioning his identity. There's an ambivalence in his assertions that perfectly captures the complexity of the Crisis of Identity career goer. People like him don't experience their change in career engagement in black and white-that is, they aren't committed workaholics one day, quiet quitters the next. They're in love with their jobs and in hate with them, often at the same time. Their feelings are messy and often take a long time to unravel or process.

For Tim, much of this messiness stems from the complicated relationship he has with his organization.

Like many organizations, Tim's office was experiencing a low-level malaise that had spread through the workplace like a virus. People stopped coming in, and in his line of work, the job can't be done entirely remotely (tech in conference rooms needed to be set up in person-with someone physically there to attach wires and check on the software, for example). As a consequence, mistakes were made and a lot of people either left or were laid off. Tim, who prides himself on never having caught this virus, left his role, searching for greener pastures. He wanted to be around colleagues who brought energy to the workplace. Or at least who were willing to come in.

But when he moved to a different branch of the organization, situated in a different building, all he found was more malaise and more unmotivated people. It was dawning on him that perhaps all information technology (IT) offices are like this-that the era of engaged tech experts is long gone.

I saw small clues that he was starting to question how this reality might affect his identity as a person who loves a career in technology. He casually brings up the possibility of moving to another state and working in higher education (which would require a trip back to school). But when I ask him about how serious he is about a career change, he waves me away. "That's for when I'm much older," he tells me.

During our interview I witnessed Tim oscillate between dreaming of a different career and leveling up at the one he has. Of starting over completely and of getting that big promotion he's always dreamed of. From my perspective, Tim is in the nascent stage of an identity crisis. There are some cracks, but nothing has broken yet. There are still enough good days to keep him coming back to work. But he is ultimately questioning whether a job in technology, which he's always prided himself on, is right for him anymore.

Others I spoke with are much further along in their journey. Susan-a professor turned UX researcher-had an experience very similar to Timothy's a few years before she decided to make a big career move. She had tenure at a university and was fully committed to her career in academia.

But her job changed starkly during the pandemic, morphing into a form she didn't recognize. The recession meant layoffs and unwanted changes coming from the top down, including change to who taught the courses she regularly taught. And with shifting standards came a change in herself she didn't recognize: a sudden loss of self-efficacy. No matter how hard she worked, it did not seem to matter. Despite being a top performer her whole life, the disengagement around her started to eat away at her confidence. "I was unsure of my value, even though I had accomplished a lot in my life and I was proud of the things I'd done," she told me. Susan made me realize that you don't need to be failing at work to have an identity crisis. Many transitioners like Susan and Timothy are doing quite well, but either they aren't recognized by others for their hard work, or the recognition no longer makes them feel good about themselves. The dopamine boosts have stopped coming.

Once she no longer felt like being a professor was an important part of her identity-a process that took time and a lot of networking to figure out-Susan was methodical in her career transition. In fact, many of the steps I recommend you work through were inspired by Susan's journey. She spent time networking with people outside her profession as an academic, learning how to frame her skills in new ways that often surprised her. She learned how and when to speak like an insider, which helped her develop her new career identity. And she learned which jargon phrases and acronyms were appropriate for her résumé. These small acquisitions of new knowledge added up, and eventually she landed her dream job.

What is a Crisis of Identity career goer?

This chapter isn't about people afraid of dedicating themselves to one career, or people who don't mind a few twists and turns on the path toward career discovery. It's about focused career goers who've had their hearts set for years on making it at one profession-people who've felt their personal identity shaped by their career, and who aren't the type to impulsively leave it. They have built their identity around what they do or what their job title is. Many are far enough along in their careers to have made it through the early weeding-out process, and some, like Susan and Timothy, have enviable skill sets. They've climbed to the upper rungs of their path, but then the doubts crept in.

The decision to leave is a tough one, perhaps the toughest of all the hurdles faced by the job seekers I cover in this book. It can affect your relationships outside work, especially if the career you now hold pays well and people are dependent on you for their livelihood. Susan got pushback from her immigrant parents, who spent decades making sure their children had opportunities they didn't. They were shocked that she would deviate from a path with a guaranteed steady income. Another transitioner told me that her partner accused her of being "irresponsible, selfish, and capricious." Her partner's job had paid for her student loans, and they had just finished paying them off. "But I couldn't stop the nagging question in the back of my mind, 'Is this really what I want to do with the rest of my life?'" she told me. Living with existential angst wasn't sustainable, so she quit before landing a new job.

I've talked to dozens of people who were facing a crisis of identity at work, some of whom were so terrified of making a mistake by leaving that they spent a good number of waking hours "job lurking" instead. Most followed a three-step process: scrolling through job ads and falling in love with a dream job, finding out who got the dream job, and then stalking the person online to learn about their qualifications and career trajectory. Few actually took the next step and reached out to these people to network with them. It's a bit like getting on the dating apps and never actually going out with...

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Verlag
Portfolio
Erscheinungsdatum
2024
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0593714741
ISBN 13 
9780593714744
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
288
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Portfolio
https://www.wetones.co.uk/

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